Article Tools

Tuesday morning, near Guadalupe in North County Santa Barbara, one of California’s most controversial and newly approved pesticides was applied to some five acres of land soon to be planted with strawberries. Looking to cure a stubborn case of Macrophomina (a rot-causing pathogen) in their fields, G&S Farms — after securing a special permit from the agricultural commissioner’s office last Wednesday — applied methyl iodide to its farmland. It was only the fifth such commercial application of the potentially cancer-causing pesticide in the state since it was made legal late last year.

[Editor’s Note: The methyl iodide application, contrary to initial reports, did not occur Tuesday morning and has been rescheduled to Monday morning.]

Expressing his dismay about the application of the fumigant, Paul Towers, a spokesperson for watchdog organization Pesticide Action Network (PAN), said simply, “There is no question in the scientific community that [methyl iodide] is too toxic to use. This is a really unfortunate decision by officials to basically ignore the science on this and put people at risk.” In an ironic twist, PAN filed a lawsuit in Alameda County courts that aims to roll back the state’s policy toward methyl iodide on the same day S.B. County issued G&S its permit.

Of course, despite the view of PAN and various other outfits around the country, the use of methyl iodide as a pesticide — sold under the brand name Midas by the Japan-based Arysta LifeScience company — is perfectly legal in California and considered by many to be a practical and equally effective replacement for methyl bromide, a longtime pesticide villain popular with strawberry growers that has been essentially rendered illegal due to its ozone-destroying ways.

In December 2010, California’s Department of Pesticide Regulation gave methyl iodide the green light as an heir apparent to methyl bromide despite a particularly damning evaluation of the chemical’s inherent health risks by a team of independent scientists specifically convened to help advise the agency. In fact, the group went so far in their report as to say not only that methyl iodide is “highly toxic” but also that “any anticipated scenario for the agricultural or structural fumigation use of this agent would result in exposures to a large number of the public and thus would have a significant adverse impact on the public health.”

Similarly, in 2007, the federal Environmental Protection Agency approved the pesticide despite an impressive outpouring of concern from the scientific community. The problem with the pesticide, explained Towers, isn’t that it ends up on your food — it is typically applied to the soil via a chemi-irrigation or simple broadcast spraying process under a tarp long before the fruit is ever planted. Instead, it can have horrible ramifications for the workers who apply it and for unknowing people exposed to “wafts” of it that might leak out from the application area. “Look, fumigants are just too difficult to contain,” said Towers, adding with emphasis, “and this is a known carcinogen that has been definitively linked to major environmental and health problems. … Hopefully this is the last application ever in California.”

To that end, besides PAN’s lawsuit — in which they, along with United Farm Workers of America, are represented by California Rural Legal Assistance — Governor Jerry Brown publicly pledged in March to reexamine the state’s policy.

Santa Barbara County agricultural biologist Debra Trupe (filling in for Ag Commissioner Cathy Fisher, who was out of town at a California Ag Commissioners Conference this week) defended her agency’s issuing of the methyl iodide permit by explaining the various “special” conditions the department imposed on G&S above and beyond those already required by the state. According to Trupe, after investigating the actual location of the strawberry field — roughly a half mile from any occupied structure (a packing shed) and more than a mile from any actual neighborhood — the Commissioner’s Office required that G&S use a totally impenetrable tarp for sealing in the fumigant, that it be applied via a chemi-irrigation process complete with pressure gauges so as to prevent any potential blowouts or leaks, and that the tenting tarp only be removed on a weekend, when no schools are in session in nearby Guadalupe.

“Even if there was a blowout or some worst-case scenario, it is protected,” said Trupe.

Comments

So let me get this straight, our public servants are authorizing the use of known carcinogens that are likely to be soon banned? And this is done in the name of what? Strawberries? I recognize the potential need to make trade-offs when it comes to food security, but the downside to not authorizing the application methyl iodide seems simply to have simply been that the farmer would have had to figure out how to grow without further harming soil fertility and public health. Am I missing something?

Ubiquitous Prop 65 warning signs advise us known carcinogens are used in countless businesses and organizations daily - safely. We've come to ignore them but they are still posted everywhere. The gasoline we pump is one-half percent benzene, a known carcinogen, about 6 pounds of benzene in a 15 gal tank. The point is exposure to miniscule and insignificant, biologically inactive amounts of carcinogens are no threat to health nor safety. Methyl-iodide, used according to the most onerous regulations in the world, poses no significant threat. As for organic strawberries, which I raise, they are simply not widely sustainable on the commercial scale of California production. They continue to be a luxury niche product for the foreseeable future due to low production and high land and resource inputs.

> "How do the organic farmers deal with this issue?" They have much lower yields, and charge a much higher price.-True, but you might be surprised sometimes how small the price difference really is. And it sure beats sterilizing the soil on a regular basis.

Great idea "water". Let's decrease the yield by 20-25% so that we can have even more starving children in Africa...and yes I farm both organic and non organic vegetables.Even more curious is how our lifespan has increased by almost 10 years in only one generation and yet we're all dying from carcinogens. We should go back to Native American Shamanism. Even before Europeans and Hispanics gave them the gift of the measles their life span was under 40 yrs...

Thanks beocen and italiansurg for pointing out the factors of production in real life. Plus the life span issues. Feast and famine has been a problem since man started farming. Besides look how much cash strawberries brought in for the county this or last year alone. Lets say besides marijuana its a leading cash crop. How is the testing done for the pesticide and how is the team of independent scientists specifically convened to help advise the agency picked (are they all appointed because they all think pesticides are bad or did capps pick them)